Join Or Else
by missmorganpryce
Summary: Lilah tries to persuade Angel to join Wolfram and Hart.


The television screen was slightly staticky and had no sound, but Lilah could clearly make out the couple frantically kissing on a desk. Horrified, she watched as Angel groped her and ripped open her shirt. He shoved her back onto the desk, then recoiled as she sprang up and shoved a large wooden cross into his face.  
  
Gavin smiled at her and hit the pause button. "Lilah, I would love to have you on my team," he said, eyeing her and Lilah knew that he was hoping that she would show him a little skin in an attempt to save herself. Well, he wouldn't be seeing any. She wasn't afraid of him and his crude attempts at blackmail  
  
"Gavin, I have more important things to do in my life than join up with you and take over the world one building code violation after another. I have things to do-" she pointed at the frozen image of Angel vamping out as she, her shirt open and her bra showing, held up a cross to him. "As you know, it's one of the main agendas for this division to have Angel join the company and whether you choose to believe it or not, I was trying to...persuade him." It was a lame excuse and she knew it, but she wasn't going to let Gavin win this round.  
  
"Persuade him after you shared a bottle of wine with him?" asked Gavin. "Great tactics."  
  
Lilah walked over to the television and removed the tape. "Let me make myself clearer. I don't care what you think you've seen; I'm not afraid of you." She dropped the tape on the floor and ground her heel into it until it crushed the casing.  
  
"So just walk out this door and please never come back-"  
  
"Did you know that that wasn't Angel?" interrupted Gavin.  
  
"Excuse me?" snapped Lilah, chills running down her spine.  
  
"The man you were kissing? Surveillance reports that Angel had had an unfortunate accident that day and had switched bodies with some old guy. That wasn't Angel on the desk; it was-" Gavin looked down to consult his notes, "Marcus Roscoe, age seventy-five."  
  
The shock must have shown on her face because Gavin grinned triumphantly.  
  
"Sure you don't want to join?"  
  
"Yes," barked Lilah, tight-lipped.  
  
"I was afraid of this," sighed Gavin. "I didn't want to resort to extremes, but you should join or else..." He opened the door to leave, and speaking of the devil, Angel strode into the room.   
  
"Whoops," said Gavin. "Looks like 'or else' is already here-" he glanced at his watch, "five minutes early." He smiled at Angel and scooted out of the room as fast as he could. Angel let him go without a second glance. He was obviously here for her.  
  
Lilah tried to keep her cool. "Angel," she greeted him in her most professional voice. Angel looked down at her feet to the broken videotape, then withdrew an identical tape from his pocket.  
  
"I got this in the mail," said Angel. He sounded almost amused.  
  
"Oh," was all Lilah could say. Gavin must have sent him a tape of their little encounter and Angel was probably going to kill her in a minute after he finished taunting her.  
  
"Didn't know you were that into me," said Angel. "I mean, I knew you had an obsession with killing me, but this?"   
  
She squinted at him. "This is you talking, not some old geezer, right?"  
  
"If Gavin hadn't been so kind as to send the tape, we would have realized it was you anyway. Fred told us that she saw me on a desk with a brunette, and there were Wolfram and Hart papers all over the floor. By the way, thanks for the building permits."  
  
Lilah cleared her dry throat nervously. It wasn't like Angel to be normal and non-threatening. "You're welcome."  
  
He dropped the videotape on the desk and stood next to her, looking at her. "So what prompted this little liaison?"  
  
"Other than the fact that I was drunk and you were making moves on me? Nothing. You're really old; you've had women fawning over you. Is it that hard to figure out? "  
  
"You would fawn over me?" asked Angel, looking surprised.  
  
"No, I was just dropping off those building permits. Couldn't let Gavin score a point with the bosses by having you evicted from the hotel."   
  
"You'd rather help your enemy than let your co-worker score a point? The hatred runs thick here," observed Angel.  
  
"You think you're my enemy?" said Lilah. "Gavin's more likely to kill me than you are, he's the bigger enemy. In his desperate attempts to try to take over my position, he wrecks more havoc than you do in your self-righteous attempts to save the world from people like us." Lilah regarded Angel oddly. He seemed to be trying to make conversation with her, a change from his usual tactics of threatening and leaning in close to her, trying to intimidate. Maybe him seeing the tape was a good thing, maybe it made him realize that evil bitches are humans too.  
  
"So you're more worried about your coworkers than you are about real enemies?" asked Angel.   
  
Lilah shrugged. "Sometimes, yeah. It's a dog eat dog world."  
  
"Do the dogs taste good? Because I've tasted a few..." said Angel.  
  
Lilah shot him a dirty look. "Why are you here?"  
  
Angel got a wry look on his face. "Have I ever told you that you're a beautiful woman, Lilah?"  
  
"Angel, either you leave or you tell me that you're interested in joining Wolfram and Hart, because I'm not interested in hearing much else from you."  
  
"The much touted security in this building stinks."  
  
"I know. Can you please leave?" said Lilah. "I have work." He might have been in a good mood, but it was starting to scare her.  
  
Angel moved as if to leave, then abruptly turned around and pinned her to the wall and kissed her. It was an awkward kiss, because Lilah had been caught off guard and tried to get away from him.  
  
She managed to slip out from under his arm and stared at him. "That's the reason you came here, to see if you could get me on the table!" She had been caught off guard. That was very bad.  
  
Angel shrugged. "Well, he did it rather easily."  
  
"Join the company and then maybe I'll get on a table for you. But not now, not after last time."  
  
"Join the company?" asked Angel.  
  
"I'm serious, join the company. There's a lot of other benefits that you probably haven't heard about yet."  
  
"Is this your version of join or else?"   
  
Lilah stepped closer and kissed him on his cold lips, this time prepared. Angel was going to need some persuasion for what was coming next. Angel didn't pull away, and he kissed her back, making it mutual, long and hard and almost as good as that kiss that was recorded on the videotape lying on her desk.  
  
Angel pulled away gently, his lips still millimeters from hers. "Is this the 'or else'?" he murmured, slipping an arm around her and running his fingers down her spine.  
  
Lilah arched her back and curved her lips into a smile. Finally, she had the upper hand. "See," she whispered back, "you sign up, and I'm your personal lawyer." She emphasized the word 'personal.'  
  
Angel continued to stroke her back. "Nice offer. Not taking it," he said, his lips now closing on her ear. Lilah couldn't help but grin broadly. This was going too well.  
  
She pulled away from him and rummaged in her desk until she found the right papers.  
  
"Here's the 'or else.' Could you sign please?"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Read the paper," said Lilah, struggling to keep the excitement out of her voice. "It's very self explanatory. No hidden clauses."   
  
"I, the undersigned, do not wish to join Wolfram and Hart or join forces with them at any given time," read Angel. He skipped to the next page. "By signing this contract, the undersigned is indicating his/her preference to have Wolfram and Hart terminate their efforts to recruit them, as the undersigned will never join Wolfram and Hart... Ok, what the hell is this?"  
  
"We're just like telemarketers," she cheerfully explained. "We have a recruitment list and we need to spend our time on those people who can be recruited. You're obviously not, so-" she brandished a pen at him, "-you sign right here and we leave you alone."  
  
Angel stared at her. "This is too good to be true."  
  
"No, it's true. You're not held to anything not stated on the papers."   
  
Angel started to read through the papers again. Whether he signed or not, she was going to win, but she still held her breath and prayed. Then he looked up at her, grabbed the pen and scrawled his name down. Lilah let out her breath and smiled broadly at him.   
  
"Why couldn't you have made me sign this a long time ago?" complained Angel, extending his hand to give her the papers. Lilah reached out and took the papers, just as Angel gave a sharp yelp and burst into a pile of dust. The papers fluttered gently to the ground along with his remains.  
  
Lilah scooped up the papers and deliberately stepped on the dust pile. She walked around her desk and patted the front edge, where a small projectile launcher was hidden in the woodwork. The stake had come from there, and she was pleased to have witnessed its success.  
  
"Or else," she said happily. She kicked the dust pile playfully, stirring up motes in the air and seeing them shimmer in the light like tiny diamonds. Still gazing at the dust, she reached over and hit a button on her speed dial.  
  
"Yes?" came Linwood's voice. Lilah really hated Linwood's voice. He always sounded like he had a slight cold.   
  
"Angel's dust, sir."  
  
"What! When did this happen!" roared Linwood over the tinny connection.  
  
"Around two minutes ago."  
  
"You. Are. Dead." He enunciated each word clearly. "The Senior Partners-"  
  
"Gave me my instructions, Linwood," she said.  
  
"The Senior Partners contacted you?"  
  
Lilah loved it when Linwood got that panicky tone in his voice.  
  
"That's right. They told me to try to get him to sign on one more time, and if he didn't, to have him eliminated. I even have his signature stating that he would never join the company. The Senior Partners decided that even though he may be playing a major role in the apocalypse, they'd risk it and eliminate him, see how well the prophecy holds up," she explained to him.  
  
"Maybe he'll get resurrected," said Linwood weakly.  
  
"Don't worry, sir," she said sweetly. "If anything goes wrong, I'll take all the blame."  
  
"Damn right you will," he snarled. "For the record, I never had anything to do with-" Lilah hung up on him.  
  
She placed the signed papers into her storage drawer and watched them disappear as the transportation spell whisked them off to join the rest of her hidden files.  
  
The projectile launcher wasn't the only new gadget she had. She opened her drawer to inspect the miniature guillotine designed to fit into a chair, then let her eyes wander back to her list, where the number one name was crossed off.  
  
Gavin and Linwood were numbers two and three.  
  
Finito  
  
This was my response to the Female Ficathon plus Ragna's tailor-made challenge for this ficathon  
  
Writing for: crazygirlmary  
  
1. Your female: Lilah  
2. One other person you'd like to see: Angel(us)  
3. This fic should preferably take place after what event on what show?: Doesn't matter.  
4. Two things you don't want: fluff, Wesley  
5. Two things you really want: sexual tension, banter  
6. Do you want a certain quote used? If so, list it here: Nah, just the usual slinging insults  
  
Ragna's challenge: Lilah has tried every means to get Angel to join Wolfram & Hart. Show one of her conversations with Angel(us).


End file.
